


into the jungle

by hydrospanners



Series: renegade [21]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Drabble, Gen, Light Angst, Suggested Female Jedi Knight | Hero of Tython/Archiban "Doc" Kimble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-12
Updated: 2018-04-12
Packaged: 2019-04-21 08:27:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14280975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hydrospanners/pseuds/hydrospanners
Summary: Nothing is quite right after escaping the Emperor's Fortress. Doc tries, in his own way, to reassure Kira that they'll get through it while Belsavis tries to kill them.





	into the jungle

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr. Written for Fictober 2017.

“Ugh,” Doc grimaced as another one of those slimy, glowing worms plopped onto his shoulder. He nudged it off with the handle of his blaster.“Why don’t we ever go anywhere nice?”

Kira huffed up ahead, her lightsaber humming as she carved a path through the tangle of damp, colorful underbrush. “Probably the same reason I got stuck with babysitting duty. Rea likes to torment us.”

“Ten minutes on the dark side and now it’s all prisons and nature.” He brushed his sweat-slick hair back from his sweat-slick forehead and tried not to think about the sweat stains forming on his new shirt. “She used to like us.”

“Are you seriously making jokes? About  _that_?”

“Laughter is the best medicine.”

“I ought to leave you out here,” Kira said. “Let you live among your own kind.”

“Do you mean the slugs—“ another one wriggled from the dirt just in time to be squished under the heel of Doc’s boot “—or the prisoners?”

“Either. Both.”

“That hurts, Red. I thought we were really starting to bond. Remember all those nice things—“

“What’s said on the Emperor’s torture station stays on the Emperor’s torture station. I’m pleading temporary insanity.”

“C’mon. We both know you love me.”

“I am tolerating you,” Kira said. “Temporarily. Just until Rea comes to her senses and everything goes back to how it used to be.”

Privately, Doc doubted whether it would. Things like what they survived—what _Rea_ survived—they changed a person. And in his experience, the only way to move forward was to keep changing until you found a change you liked.

“Never thought I’d miss you two being gross.” After a moment’s hesitation, Kira added, in a much smaller voice, “You don’t think she’s really trying to get you killed do you?”

“Get me killed?” Doc laughed. “Takes more than a jungle of serial killers and cannibals to get Ol’ Doc. Rea knows that.”

Kira didn’t seem convinced.

“She’s still herself, Red. A bit wounded maybe, but still the same old Rea. Way I figure, she’s hoping we’ll up and leave her if she shoves all the stuff we hate in our faces enough. The classic 'making him leave so I don’t have to'.”

Much as she liked to paint herself as a truth-telling straight shooter, Doc knew how slippery Rea could be. People didn’t expect such a loud, impulsive woman to keep as many secrets as she did.

“Well she’s doing a good job of it.” Kira slashed at a particularly thick bush with more force than was probably necessary, glowering. “Cause I sure as hell hate this.”

It was hard to argue with that.


End file.
